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The Fairies’ Share

by Bernadette Weyde
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The ‘soddhag-rheynney‘ (dividing-cake) was an extra bit of dough baked in a flat cake, broken into small pieces, and scattered on the kitchen floor or just outside the house for the fairies to enjoy in the night-time.

One time, when a Kirk Bride girl baked, cleaned up, and went to bed without having made the soddhag-rheynney, the fairies gave her a smack in the eye to wake her up and remind her.

Perhaps this was on November Eve or May Eve, when such offerings were compulsory.

“When the fairies are coming in the houses in the night, you are always obliged to keep a bit of broken cake…if not they make a terrible great row.”


(source: A Third Manx Scrapbook (1937), W Walter Gill)

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